10 US Government Agencies Plan Expanded Use of Facial Recognition (msn.com) 29
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. government "plans to expand its use of facial recognition to pursue criminals and scan for threats, an internal survey has found, even as concerns grow about the technology's potential for contributing to improper surveillance and false arrests."
Ten federal agencies — the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — told the Government Accountability Office they intend to grow their facial recognition capabilities by 2023, the GAO said in a report posted to its website Tuesday. Most of the agencies use face-scanning technology so employees can unlock their phones and laptops or access buildings, though a growing number said they are using the software to track people and investigate crime. The Department of Agriculture, for instance, said it wants to use it to monitor live surveillance feeds at its facilities and send an alert if it spots any faces also found on a watch list...
The GAO said in June that 20 federal agencies have used either internally developed or privately run facial recognition software, even though 13 of those agencies said they did not "have awareness" of which private systems they used and had therefore "not fully assessed the potential risks ... to privacy and accuracy." In the current report, the GAO said several agencies, including the Justice Department, the Air Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reported that they had used facial recognition software from Clearview AI, a firm that has faced lawsuits from privacy groups and legal demands from Google and Facebook after it copied billions of facial images from social media without their approval... Many federal agencies said they used the software by requesting that officials in state and local governments run searches on their own software and report the results. Many searches were routed through a nationwide network of "fusion centers," which local police and federal investigators use to share information on potential threats or terrorist attacks...
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, who have called the technology "the way of the future," said earlier this month that they had run facial recognition scans on more than 88 million travelers at airports, cruise ports and border crossings. The systems, the officials said, have detected 850 impostors since 2018 — or about 1 in every 103,000 faces scanned.
The GAO said in June that 20 federal agencies have used either internally developed or privately run facial recognition software, even though 13 of those agencies said they did not "have awareness" of which private systems they used and had therefore "not fully assessed the potential risks ... to privacy and accuracy." In the current report, the GAO said several agencies, including the Justice Department, the Air Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reported that they had used facial recognition software from Clearview AI, a firm that has faced lawsuits from privacy groups and legal demands from Google and Facebook after it copied billions of facial images from social media without their approval... Many federal agencies said they used the software by requesting that officials in state and local governments run searches on their own software and report the results. Many searches were routed through a nationwide network of "fusion centers," which local police and federal investigators use to share information on potential threats or terrorist attacks...
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, who have called the technology "the way of the future," said earlier this month that they had run facial recognition scans on more than 88 million travelers at airports, cruise ports and border crossings. The systems, the officials said, have detected 850 impostors since 2018 — or about 1 in every 103,000 faces scanned.
Big surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
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Technology is the way to not be responsible. (Score:2)
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Re: Our First Affirmative Action Martyr (Score:2)
He shot Ashli Babbit for sticking her head they the door - he emitted he couldn't see her hands, had no idea if she was armed, but he decided (by her haircut?) she alone posed a physical threat to himself or another person and chose to use lethal force.
Did he command her to retreat?
Did he alert her to his presence?
Or did he draw his weapon and pull the trigger because he couldn't think of any other way to exert control of the crowd on the other side of a locked door with a smashed-out window?
Imagine if a wh
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Think about this for one minute.
A government building housing many important politicians has barricaded their doors against a mob of people. You break a window of a barricaded entrance and try to climb through. Gee what a surprise you get shot. That shooting would be justified if Ashli was breaking into a private residence.
If that crowd was black there would have been countless fatalities, not just one idiot who bled out while draped in the name of a reality television star.
America vs China on the main page (Score:1)
Re: America vs China on the main page (Score:2)
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One of these countries has genocidal organ harvesting concentration camps. The other one does not. They are not even close to equivalent.
They seem to have forgotten about face masks (Score:5, Interesting)
Facial recognition has been obliterated by mass adoption of face masks, to the point where heartbeat recognition systems using lasers are being investigated to replace them. I don't understand why the government is going to waste money on what is essentially an obsolete security measure when they have this [technologyreview.com].
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Governments have been working facial recognition based on a camera just seeing your eyes.
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Re: They seem to have forgotten about face masks (Score:2)
I wonder what defeats it? Are all FR systems roughly on par with each other with respect to accuracy?
Fucking amazing stats here (Score:4, Informative)
Totally justifies the scans just like TSA is totally justified by the number of terrorists they've stopped, not the fact they're generally just awful at their jobs!
https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]
Re: Fucking amazing stats here (Score:3)
You cite meaningless statistics - do have reason to think there are more than 800 imposters out of 88 million travelers? How hits out of 88 million travelers turned out incorrect?
I suspect the real purpose of the exercise is to train their AI to better identify people and correlate their travel papers with their current face - catching imposters is likely a secondary or tertiary priority. They now have confirmed facial recognition for as many as 88 million people.
Really? (Score:2)
The Department of Agriculture, for instance, said it wants to use it to monitor live surveillance feeds at its facilities and send an alert if it spots any faces also found on a watch list...
The Department of Agriculture has a "watch list"?
How does one get on the "No Grow" list?
Re: Really? (Score:2)
What happens when they get it wrong? (Score:2)
What happens when they get alerted that the face is on the 10 most wanted list? What is the process for ensuring the person is not treated like a clay pigeon before a positive ID?
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It is called "qualified immunity" for the murderers....
"Threats" = "people we do not like" (Score:2)
Time for kicking these people in the nuts, hard. Of you decide to not do that, have fun in the upcoming totalitarian state.
Your face or your cell phone location (Score:1)
Also in the news.... (Score:2)
Also in the news, the US govt plans to mandate masks everywhere. I wonder how that will work out for face recog?
Re: Also in the news.... (Score:2)